Exonian Profiles
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Brenda Patterson ’95: ‘An Auspicious
Debut’
On November 17, New York audiences were treated to a debut recital
by a promising young mezzo-soprano, the winner of Juilliard’s
2004 Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital Competition. Her ambitious
program of contemporary and classical pieces moved The New York Times
critic to write that “this was a voice you wanted to hear and
even more an artist you wanted to follow.” From Patterson’s point of view, the two venues for a vocal artist—recitals and opera—are very different experiences. Both can be a lot of fun, says Patterson, but the recital has always had a special place in her heart. “In a recital, you get to express yourself more as an individual artist. It’s a blank canvas where you paint what you want, as opposed to opera which involves a whole lot more people and is not as simple.” But her thoughts on opera are apt to undergo a maturing. In September, Patterson joins the Hamburg State Opera in Germany to sing roles as varied as Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel and Gretel and Idamante in Mozart’s Idomedeo. A lyric mezzo, Patterson’s voice type, often plays roles like these, where women sing the parts of young men. The young mezzo-soprano has already done her share of them—known to the opera public as “trouser” roles. She will also sing in other operas by Wagner, Mozart and Rossini. According to Patterson, in opera roles are determined not only by range and where a voice “sits,” but also by its color, flexibility, volume and weight—and sometimes by personality and body type as well. In her debut recital, Patterson sang an ambitious program mixing different colors and sounds—compositions by George Crumb, William Bolcom and Charles Ives, along with Haydn and Bach—and fulfilled her intention to “not just do the standard sort of thing.” Among her family and friends in the audience at the New York concert was one of her former teachers, Steve Kushner, a member of Exeter’s music department, who has been following Patterson’s career since her student days. Kushner remembers first hearing Patterson, a new upper from West Chester, PA, in 1993. “Brenda had a mature voice from the beginning,” he notes. Exeter offered her lots of opportunities to sing with the orchestra and chamber ensembles, and the skills she acquired as a member of the Concert Choir have, she says, been invaluable. She went on to earn degrees from both Barnard and Juilliard. Patterson seems poised for considerable success, but she remains down to earth about her career. “Singing is my profession,” she notes. “It’s something I have learned how to do. Starting as young as I did, it’s been 20 years of singing every day, at Exeter with Anna Soranno, and then for the past 10 years with Edith Bers.” The long, steady path continues this spring with “Pierrot lunaire” with members of the Met Opera Orchestra at Lincoln Center in May and Dido in Dido and Aeneas with the Greenwich, CT, Music Festival on June 5. —
Janice Reiter |
